Abstract. This paper
argues that truth is by nature context-dependent – that no truth can be applied
regardless of context. I call this “strong contextualism”. Some objections to
this are considered and rejected, principally: that there are universal truths
given to us by physics, logic and mathematics; and that claiming “no truths are
universal” is self-defeating. Two “models” of truth are suggested to indicate
that strong contextualism is coherent. It is suggested that some of the utility
of the “universal framework” can be recovered via a more limited “third person
viewpoint”. Keywords: philosophy, universality, context, truth, knowledge.

1.Introduction – the position of strong
contextualism

The
standard philosophical world-view presumes that there exist universal truths –
propositions that hold regardless of context. In other words, that truth itself
is somehow separate (or separable) from the messy contingencies of our
world.Furthermore it often assumes
that sometimes one can know these truths.This paper considers the opposite situation,
namely, the possibility that truth is by its nature context-dependent – that
truths only have meaning in a limited set of contexts and thus they are only
applicable in those contexts. One consequence of this position is that for
every proposition there is a context in which it does not hold.

This
can be seen as the result of an ineradicably association of a truth with its
development, expression and application.That although some
abstraction and generalisation away from particularities is possible, it is not possible to
abstract away from all contexts and generalise to complete universality.For example, “red is a colour” may be a
generalisation from several many context-specific experiences of different
shades of red, but if one abstracts away from all experience contexts it loses
its meaning and there will be some contexts where it is simply
inapplicable.This includes those in
categories such as “synthetic”, “logical” and “a priori”.As I explain in section 5, I use the work “truth” because that is the most
sensible and intuitive term, and I am arguing against the distinctions implicit
in the expression/proposition and truth/knowledge divides – I do mean that
“truth” itself is context-dependent and not merely knowledge or expression.

This goes beyond saying (with Penco, 1999) that “there
is no ultimate outer context” for as Roger Young (1999) has shown it is
possible to define absolute truth in such a situation using an abstract notion
of quantifying across ever-wider contexts – something can be defined as
absolutely true if it is true in all contexts containing the one it is posited
in.Such a quantification is, of
course, an absolute notion – standing above a never-ending progression of ever
wider contexts.Quite apart from this
being a utterly impractical process (how does one ever know that there will not
be another more general context in which a particular truth is false?), this
notion has already assumed the possibility of such universal notions as
quantification over contexts in order to establish the possibility of defining
absolute truth in a world where there is no “outer context”.It is possible that this sort of notion can
be applied reflectively to itself and the further quantification over
meta-contexts that would be necessary etc. but then what grounds would one have
for saying that the result contains absolute truths?Each level of establishing truth involving a quantification over
contexts is limited to its infinite set of contexts – it is conceivable that
such a trans-infinite recursion results in truly universal truths, but there
are no firm grounds for saying this would be the case (even if it were
possible).

I am going further than saying there might be an
infinite regression of wider-contexts, I am looking at the possibility that any
particular truth is linked to specific contexts as part of its nature and
cannot be applied regardless of context.This paper argues for the coherency of such a position, looks at some of
the reasons why one might suppose this is the case and suggests how one might
recover almost all of the utility of the fictional “absolute frame of
reference” as a means of facilitating discussion by introducing “the
philosophical context” without some of the more misleading aspects implicit in
the absolute version.

For want of a better term I will call such my position
“strong contextualism”.This is
distinguished from both relativism and, what I will call “weak contextualism” –
that there may be universal truths but we never know them (in the strong
philosophical sense of believing them with good justification).Relativism is that the truth of all
propositions is relative to the person or viewpoint. It allows for the
possibility that from within a view point a proposition might be held (with
good reason) to be true over all contexts, unlike strong contextualism.Also strong contextualism allows for the
possibility of objective knowledge (unlike many forms of relativism) because a
proposition can be simultaneously context-dependent and objective – as long as
the context in which a proposition holds can be reliably identified by third
persons (regardless of their viewpoint) its truth within that context can be
independently tested.

This paper has a lot in common with the conclusion of
(Penco, 1999), but whereas he approaches his goal subtly examining some of the
problems with objective approaches to context, I am aiming to tackle the
question “head on”.

The rest of the paper will be divided as follows.Section 2 will briefly recap my previous analysis of the nature
of context. Sections 3,
4, 5 and 6 will deal with some obvious objections to the
position: that there appear to be some universal truths; that strong
contextualism is self abnegating; that I am simply confusing truth with
knowledge or belief and that context-dependent truths can be simply converted
to context-independent ones.Sections 7, 8 and 9 will look at some more
positive arguments: suggesting some models to show the coherency of the
position; looking at some positive reasons why it is sensible; and showing that
the utility of the “absolute framework” as a means of facilitating discussion
can be recovered within strong contextualism. Section 10 will indicate the context of the paper and I
will conclude in section 11.

The following
analysis of context follows (Edmonds, 1999) which goes into it in much greater
depth.

The
possibility of learning and inference in our complex world is dependent on the
fact that many of the possible causes of events remain relatively constant in
most circumstances. If this were not the case we would need to include all the
possible causes in our models. This relative constancy is what makes knowledge
possible: we can learn a model in one circumstance and apply it in another
circumstance that is sufficiently similar to the first. The label of ‘context’
is as a stand-in for those factors that are not explicitly included in the
models we learn, or, to put it positively, those factors that we use to
recognise when a model is applicable.

It is
the possibility of the transference of knowledge from the circumstances where
they are learnt to the circumstances where they are applied which allows the
emergence of context. The utility of ‘context’ comes from the possibility of
such transference. If this were not feasible then ‘context’, as such, would not
arise. Context and knowledge are contingently possible because of the nature of
the world. This is illustrated below in figure1.

Fig.
1.
Context in the transference of knowledge between learning and application

For
such a transference to be possible it is necessary that:

some of the possible factors influencing an outcome are separable
in a practical way;

a useful distinction can be made between those factors that can be
categorised as foreground features (including ‘causes’) and the others;

the background factors are capable of being recognised later on;

the world is regular enough for such models to be at all
learnable;

the world is regular enough for such learnt models to be at all
useful when applied in situations where the context can be recognised.

While
this transference of knowledge to applicable situations is the basic process,
observers and analysts of this process might identify some of these
combinations of features that allow recognition and abstract them as a
‘context’. This usually is possible because the transference of knowledge as
models requires that the agent doing the transference can recognise these
characteristic combinations, so it is possible that an observer might also be able
to do so and give these combinations names. On the other hand the underlying
recognition mechanism may be obscure. Of course, it may be that the agent doing
the transference itself analyses and abstracts these features, and thus makes
this abstract available for reflective thought.

Specifying
a context by listing all the
conditions/causal factors that are not explicit in our knowledge is impossible
– this is akin to listing all the things that are not in a box, the list is infinite.This is why contexts are things that are
primarily recognised rather than
inferred.A context independent truth,
from this bottom-up perspective, would have to combine the explicit content of
a model with the implicit content of the context.This is the reason why truth is so dependent upon context –
because a large portion of its content
necessarily resides there.

In
this picture of things (a picture which is rooted in the process by which
truths are actually established): beliefs are learnt by interaction with the
world and others; knowledge and belief are distinguished by what can be
independently validated as reliable; and truth is the content of this
knowledge.This is opposite to a
picture whereby (at least some) truths can be established by pure argument and
only applied with the addition of contingent detail later.Such an idealist picture has big problems
defining knowledge, because from this (theoretically) absolute standpoint there
is no necessity for any connection between our belief, our reasons for having
the belief and the truths it has to coincide with it is to obtain to knowledge.

The first
objection I will deal with is that fact that there appear to be universal
truths, for example those given to us by logic, mathematics and the “hard”
sciences.While I could not hope to
consider the universality of all such truths in one paper, I do hope to
indicate via a few archetypal examples how these truths might have “hidden”
contexts in which their truth is firmly embedded.

3.1Physics

The archetypal
“universal truths” of physics are Newton’s laws of motion.These are constant across frames of
reference that are travelling at a constant velocity relative to each other.It is, of course, now well known that there are
some conditions of application for these laws – they hold only in the
macroscopic world for velocities that are small relative to that of light.Now it may be supposed that the process of
the contextualisation of Newton’s laws have reached an end with quantum
corrections and extensions due to the Theory of Special Relativity, but this is
not the case.General relativity means
that another condition is that you are not near a large mass (which produces an
effect indistinguishable from a large acceleration) and more recently the speed
necessary for relativistic effects to become apparent has come sharply down in
special circumstances where the speed of light has been slowed (to lower than 1
m/s).

In
fact there has been a continual stream of thinking since Einstein, postulating
even more radical contractions of universality.There is a school of thought that the different types of forces
(and their accompanying “laws”) only separated as the universe cooled in the
moments after the Big Bang (Weinberg, 1988). This would mean that many of the
laws of physics depend upon a relatively cool context for their existence. In
another direction the “Anthropic principle” (Barrow and Tippler, 1986) suggests
that many aspects of our universe can be “explained” because if they were not
so we would not have evolved to formulate the laws.Quantum physics suggests that new universes might be being
created all the time forming a “foam” of distinct universes which might have
different laws of physics – it is speculated that only those sufficiently stable
to support intelligent life will have its laws recognised and formulated.

Philosophers
such as Nancy Cartwright (19983) and Richard Giere (1988) who study the process
of science have documented how the application of laws to the world is not a
neat, axiomatic one but grounded in a rich scientific context which provides
the all-important rules as to how one relates models to situations.Training is required in order to be able to
successfully apply the “laws of physics” because there is no infallible rule
book but rather a mixture of processes is required including fuzzy
recognition.Nancy Cartwright goes as
far as distinguishing theoretical and phenomenological laws, claiming that
theoretical laws are strictly false whilst phenomenal laws are specific to a
particular situation.

Thus
although a naïve[1]
picture of physics characterises it as universal, the reality (especially as
revealed in its practice) shows otherwise.This is not overly surprising – the training of a physicist is long and
is not merely concerned with how to look-up various laws.Rather the efficacy of physics lies in the
ability to recognise a rich set of contexts[2],
to choose and then adapt the relevant techniques.

3.2Logic

Another
archetypal truth is the inference pattern implicit in “Aristotle is a man, all
men are mortal, therefore Aristotle is mortal”. This seems to be universal, but
this is merely a limitation upon our imagination – consider “This is a
sentence, the meaning of sentences are determined by their use, so this
sentence’s meaning is determined by its use” (i.e. this use)[3].The reasoning now no longer follows so
inexorably – a pattern designed for exterior use may fall down in the presence
of self-reference.

The
standard response by logicians is that there is nothing wrong with the
inference pattern itself, it has been merely applied wrongly but, of course,
they are unable to give criteria for the correct application of inference
patterns except by reference to specific applications where it gives the answer
they expect.They push the problem into
someone else’s court in the hope of retaining universal validity[4].This attempt is undermined by the
proliferation of alternative logical formalisms, each different from the
others.They can not all be universally
correct in themselves, and although there are still a few logicians who are
still holding out for the “one true logic”, the rest are forced by the
practicalities into accepting that one chooses one’s logic according to the
context.

Practical
reasoning – that is reasoning that actually gives useful conclusions that work
– is a world away from its models in formal logic and inevitably makes heavy
recognition and use of context.This is
illustrated by the following classic example; when subjects were told “If the
light is red then the car stops” and asked “What can you deduce from the fact
that the car stops?”, the majority (of people who are not formally trained in
logic) reply “The light is red”.There
was some discussion on the PHIL-LOGIC (philosophical logic) mailing list as to
why the subjects made the “wrong inference”, with the most popular explanation
being that implication (if) was confused with equivalence (if and only
if).Whereas a more believable
explanation is that the question implicitly indicated to the subjects that the
appropriate context is “stopping at traffic lights” where the inference is
correct (there not being any other cause of stopping).

Again
what looks like universality from afar is necessarily context-dependent in use
– so called universal laws of logic are not universally applicable.

3.3Mathematics

Pure
mathematics aspires to a world of its own. It is concerned with what can be
formally proven given certain structures, assumptions etc. For example, given
Peano’s axioms for arithmetic, the standard notation and some standard logical
inference operations, one can prove the statement “1+1=2”.Does this not mean that that “1+1=2” is a
universal truth, devoid of context?I would
argue not.

There
are two interpretations of “1+1=2”: that it is a formal sequence of symbols
that are provable from other sequences using formal rules; or that it expresses
a fact about objects in the world, namely, that putting one object together
with another object gives you two objects. I will consider these one at a time.

If
one takes the formal interpretation, then the statement “1+1=2” doesn’t have
any meaning
outside that given by the formal system it is part of – it derives all
of its truth, meaning and relation to other statements from that system.It is, in other words, entirely dependent
upon the context of that system.

If
“1+1=2” is about the world, it is not making an empty statement – it is saying,
for example, that two objects retain their identity when considered together,
that they don’t merge and become one (“1+1=1”), or even disappear
(“1+1=0”).Now we know that, in most
circumstances this is a sensible way to consider the world – it impinges upon
us as separate and identifiable chunks.There is evidence from child psychologists that we have, at a very early
age, an ability (or bias) to view the world in such units.The “countability” of objects is such a
pervasive part of our experience that we forget upon the huge assumptions and
properties upon which it is based.Such
an interpretation does not survive a move to the context of the sub-atomic
world; there it may make far more sense to not to consider particles as
discrete but as observable manifestations of a single, continuous wave
function. The point is that when treated as a statement about the world, it is
as context-dependent as any other such statement.It does not lose this context-dependency just because it happens
to be expressible in a formal system.

There
is a third interpretation, of course, but this is one that already presumes
universality as its starting point.It
is that “1+1=2” is somehow indicative of a universal truth about the relation
of oneness
and twoness
that can be seen as an abstraction of all the real world interpretations of
“1+1=2”.The existence of such a truth
is entirely by presumption, claims for its universality are not based on any
evidence or argument but seem to rest mainly on the fact that it can be
conceived to be so[5].

The
importance of mathematics comes from the fact that one can establish strong
mappings from it to aspects of the world and its utility from moving between
the formal realm where syntactic moves are made (for example in a calculator)
and what we are considering (for example sheep).It is when a mapping is established that the power of mathematics
becomes manifest. I suspect that it is this immensely useful ability to map
between contexts that has led some to make the mistake that mathematical truths
are universal.

The next
obvious objection to strong contextualism is that it is self-defeating.The argument goes something like this: if
all truths are context-dependent so is this, therefore there is a context in
which this is not true and so, in general, strong contextualism is false. This
argument is similar in structure to many paradoxes including the liar paradox
and Russell’s set-theory paradox.

Of
course, the nub of the argument is in the words “in general”.I do claim that truth has no meaning in general,
and that includes the truth of strong contextualism.However, that does not mean that there are universal truths – to
get to the existence
of universal truths from this pseudo-paradox one would have to do something
such as going from Ø"t[$c1(ist(t,c1)) ®$c2(Øist(t,c2))]
– a denial of the statement that every statement true in some context is false
in another – to $t"c(ist(t,c)) – the
existence of a statement true in any context – (here t is a truth, c1 and c2 are contexts, "t stands for “all
truths”, $c1stands
for “there is a context”, etc.) as in the following reasoning:

The
trouble is that to push this argument through one already assumes the
existence of universal truths, including: the ability to quantify over all
truths and all contexts, and that negation and implication are classical (which
implicitly utilises an absolute framework in its assumptions, for example the
law of the excluded middle).Basically
one is using a highly non-constructive proof that presumes that things such as
the law of the excluded middle works when quantifying over all truths and sets.Such quantification involves quantification
over structures bigger than the classes that caused naïve set theory such
problems (e.g. the set of all sets), since “f
is a set” is a truth for all sets f.

Strong
contextualism is context-dependent and thus is not as strong as a putative
universal truth would be (if one existed in any meaningful sense), but it could
well be as strong as other truths that we rely upon, such as: Schrödinger’s
Wave equation, the logical rule of Modus Ponens or the arithmetical statement
“1+1=2”.The fact that strong
contextualism is false in general is unthreatening, because it is
trivial.

What
happens if we try the argument the other way around: if in any meaningful sense
all
truths are context-dependent, then this (or some closely related statement such
as “all truths except this one are context-dependent”) is universally true.
Again this fails because it assumes that just because a statement has the word
“all” in it that this must be a (truly) universal quantification rather than
some meaningful
quantification relevant to the context.This brings up the nature of the context of strong contextualism itself
which I will discuss in section 7 below.

Strong
contextualism is only self-negating if one takes tries to examine it from a
universal stance – the moral of these arguments is that one cannot safely mix
the two.In the next section I look at
some more positive ways of addressing the coherency of strong contextualism.

The third
objection is simply that I am using the wrong names: what I mean by “truth” is
what others call “knowledge” (or even “belief”).That“truth” can’t be
context-dependent by definition, because then it wouldn’t be “true”[6].To distinguish these I shall call the
“true”=“true independent of context” nomenclature “universalist nomenclature”
and the usage as in most of this paper “contextualist nomenclature”. Using
universalist nomenclature the position ofthis paper would be that there are no truths.Put this way the thesis sounds idiotic but
this is due to the fact that philosophy routinely sets an unrealistically high
standard for truth (namely that it should be true without exception in any
context) whilst at the same time purporting to be able to say something about
them.

There
are problems with the universalist nomenclature.Firstly, it produces strongly counter-intuitive (dare I say unreal)
results.According to this it is not
“true” that “the 192 bus goes to Manchester” despite the fact that it
does!This is due to the fact that it
is possible to conceive of contexts where it is not true (e.g. Manchesterin the U.S.).In other words universalist nomenclature diverges sharply from
common parlance in, for example, most of the sciences. Secondly, it presupposes
that truth and knowledge are separable, with truth being the universal ideal
which we can sometimes obtain.This is
precisely what I am arguing against.

So to
be clear, I arguing that statements that almost everybody would, with good
reason, take as true are context-dependent.This includes such as “1+1=2”, “bachelors are unmarried”, “Julius Caesar
conquered Gaul” and the laws of physics.I choose to call these “truths” because they are statements that are
true!I am claiming that even these
sorts of things are context-dependent.If the reader wishes to go through the paper replacing all instances of
“true” and “truths” with “known” and “knowledge” they arewelcome to do so providing they then keep in
mind that I am arguing (in this ridiculously strong universalist nomenclature)
that there
are no truths- or even all
statements are false (again in this extremely strict sense).

The final
objection I will deal with is this: that every context-dependent statement can
be converted to a context-independent one by expressing its conditions
explicitly.This could be expressed as
moving from ist(c,
a)
to c®a.

The
reason why this is not completely possible is that whenever one context is a
generalisation of some other contexts (e.g. the context of a “formal occasion”,
generalised from funerals, interviews, award ceremonies etc.) one inevitably
looses some of the meaning in the less abstract contexts, because meaning
ultimately derives from direct experience in situ.Thus if one continues to abstract away to more and more abstract
contexts, one is left with literally meaningless expressions.

Contexts
are always, to some extent, recognised rather than inferred.There is no set of conditions that one lay
down that precisely describes the context.Seen as this, basic context describe the edge of reason, or put more
positively, allow
the existence of “crisp” inference by prescribing a huge raft of “the given”.

As
anyone who has tried it will testify, making all the conditions explicit is
utterly impractical, if not impossible.

In this
section I discuss some formal systems that might illustrate what truth under
strong contextualism might be like.These analogies establish a sort of coherency for the position.

7.1A Gödelian cascade of proof systems

Unlike
truth, formal proof has always being accepted as system-dependent. A proof has
to be incrementally constructed from the axioms and rules of the formal system
– there is no such thing as a universal proof.The idea is to use an analogy where truth corresponds to a formally
provable fact and contexts correspond to a formal system.

Consider
a formal axiomatic system, sufficiently expressive to encode arithmetic, call
it S1.Gödel’s
incompleteness theorems tell us that there are facts in S1 that are
not provable in S1. However it is possible to construct a
meta-system S2 in which these facts are provable. Gödel’s
incompleteness theorems apply equally to S2 so there are facts about
S2 that are only provable in a meta-meta system S3. In
this way we can construct new layers Sn as required.All facts are provable in some system Sn
but there isn’t any system in which all facts are provable.

Truth
may be like provable facts in these systems – all truths are dependent upon
some context but this does not mean that there is a context in which all truths
hold.

7.2Alternative inner models in set
theory

In
the last analogy truths collect as you get further out, a truth dependent upon
a lower context means that it also holds in all outer-contexts.Truth is not necessarily like that, so I
give a second analogy where this is not true.This time the analogy is taken from set theory, where truth corresponds
with the consistency of sets of axioms and context corresponds with inner
models that show their consistency.

Now
for any proper subset of the axioms of set theory (except foundation, which is
there for technical reasons) there is a set in which all of this subset is
true.This set is called an inner model
because it is a model of the working of the subset of axioms.However (due to Gödel again) it is known
that there can’t be an inner model that showed the consistency of all
the axioms of set theory, since that would mean that set theory proved its own
consistency. Thus we have different inner models showing the consistency of
different proper subsets of the axioms, but no one showing their consistency
all together.

If
truth does act as this analogy suggests, then there may well be different
contexts for different truths but not one context for all truths.

The most
obvious reason for supposing strong contextualism is that all truth is
developed, established and applied in a context. It is pure supposition to
believe that despite its “home grown” nature in practice that somehow there are
truths that happen to be completely universal.Cases such as Aristotle’s syllogism and “laws” of physics above may
appear to suggest that they are universal but on closer inspection this is not
necessarily the case.

Each
truth having (at least one) context upon which it was dependent provides us
with useful properties: a source for meaning; information to aid
troubleshooting; and meta-knowledge about truth.I briefly look at these in turn.

A
context can help provide the meaning of the truth by reference to the
contexts of the truth’s development, establishment and application.At the most basic level one learns the
meaning of pain in a context where one experiences it, where one watches others
experiencing it and when one tries to avoid it.The experience of other, somewhat incidental, facts that hold in
these contexts gives the truth its “flavour”, without which it would be
difficult to relate to.

Knowing
the context that a fact depends upon gives one valuable information about what
assumptions to question if the fact is apparently contradicted (either by
experience or another fact). Tracing back the origin or derivation of knowledge
is the only way of assessing the cause and nature of mistakes.

By
naturalising the account of truth so that it becomes the collective and
verifiable counterpart to personal knowledge, we are able to examine some of
the mechanisms by which it can be identified (i.e. learnt) in the first
place.In this way we may be able to
come to a fuller picture of truth that may be more useful because we can be
more aware of the mechanisms which it relies upon.

Given all
of what I have said why has the fiction of universal truths been so
popular?I think the answer to this
lies in the nature of philosophy. An absolute framework with universal truths
simplifies discussion to an enormous degree if one can use the fictions of an
absolute framework and absolute truths.It gives the impression that the content of the discussion has universal
applicability – the idea is that somehow one could establish the universal
truths first and “add in” the messy details later[7].
It is a defensible position against counter-examples, which is one of the
driving dynamics of philosophical argument.

Thus
I suspect the fiction of an absolute framework is rooted firmly in
philosophical practice. It facilitates philosophy to a huge extent – in
fact it is almost as if it forms the very playing field on which philosophy is
done. It would be useful to see if some of this utility can be retained without
the misleading downsides of the absolute framework.

If
context can be characterised as an abstraction of the background/assumed
conditions of a model (Edmonds, 1999), then this indicates that a truth can be
useful in one of two circumstances: that the conditions under which it holds
can be reliably recognised; or that these conditions are so pervasive that they
can be safely assumed under “normal” conditions.In the second of these cases it can be helpful to cut out
repeated reference to the normality conditions and simplify communication
through the use of “philosophical context”, which is the context within
which all the events and discussion occur.This is a simulation of a universal framework because it is sufficiently
wide to encompass all truths that normally hold.Such a context allows maximum generality and can be very useful
in expressing objective truths in these conditions (sometimes called a “third
person viewpoint”).

What
it can not do is contain counter-examples that go beyond the normal
conditions it is situated in – the sort of counter-examples that philosophy
abounds with (e.g. a landscape with facades of red barns obscuring real red
barns, so that someone passing through believes, for good reason, that there is
a red barn there, but is only correct by coincidence).This means that when these outer normality
limits are reached and such a counter-example proposed, that the response is
not to elaborate whatever proposition the example was made against, but to
point the way in which the example was abnormal.One common way in which the normality conditions implicit in a
discursive framework are breached in philosophy is via the means of
reflection.Unlimited reflection can
easily be incoherent and deceptive[8]
in ways which can act to distort abstraction by placing unreasonable demands
upon the (self) inclusiveness of expression[9].

A
legitimate question to ask of the position espoused in this paper is “What is its
context?”As one might expect, I think
this is a highly legitimate (and probably pertinent) question of any argument
that even hints at universality.

The
original context in which the ideas were conceived was that of listening to
philosophical discussions where I repeatedly observed how the insistence on
universality (enforced by the means of abnormal counter-examples) resulted in
conceptions that were inapplicable to the world.The ideas were further developed when I began to appreciate how
knowledge might be developed via generalisation in a context when playing about
with evolutionary learning algorithms.The context from which I have tried to write this paper is from a
third-person viewpoint examining how we actually conceive of truth and how we
might make our manipulation of truth more productive.

I hope I
have shown that a naturalised and context-dependent account of truth is not
only credible and coherent but also allows for the development of a science of
truth.In this way we can
simultaneously reclaim the common sense usage of the word as well as deepening
our understanding in it.The context of
truths provides the “missing half” of the picture – the essential parts of
truth that not explicitly represented, but are necessary for meaning and the explanation of error.The nature of truth can be ultimately traced to the contexts it was
derived in (or the contexts from which it was abstracted from).Truth does not somehow exist in the abstract, separated from the
messy contingencies of the world, but is very much part of the world.

In
fact, all in all, the more pertinent question is not

“Why would one suppose that truth is
context-dependent?”

but

“Why on earth would one suppose
it wasn’t in
the first place?”

12.References

Adams, E. and Levine, H. P. (1975). On the
Uncertainties Transmitted from Premises to Conclusions in Deductive Inferences,
Synthése,
30:429-460.

[1]
Either naïve or radically systematised and simplified for didactic purposes in,
for example, textbooks.

[2]
As Cartwright documents scientists frequently apply different sorts of model
with different sorts of approximation simultaneously, even when these are (in
strict terms) incompatible.

[3]
Or more accurately: “This is a sentence, Wittgenstein’s later philosophy
suggests that the meaning of sentences are determined by their use, so
Wittgenstein’s later philosophy suggests that the meaning of this sentence is
determined by its use”.

[4]
A notable exception to this is (Adams and Levine 1976), who start to
investigate the conditions under which logical inference will hold in the face
of uncertainty.

[5]
Such an idea can legitimately be used as a useful “fiction” or “short-hand” to
simplify expression when the context is well understood, but this is very
different from believing it!

[6]
Though how one could go about defining “truth” without begging the
question is beyond me!

[8]
See (Perlis, 1985, 1988) for some of the difficulties in unlimited
self-reflection.

[9]
An interesting example in philosophy where language and philosophy are
discussed but without self-reference is (Wittgensein, 1975), which takes the
safer and more certain option of the sort of “third party” context I am
advocating.